Echoing Multiverse

 Jord is the Great Mother Goddess of Norse mythology.  She is described in the Prose Edda as both a giantess and a member of the Aesir. Her name is pronounced like yard, and means land, soil, earth.  The unit of measure is named after her.  The Earth itself may also be named after her.  From etymology online ,  “earth (n.) Old English eorþe "ground, soil, dirt, dry land; country, district," also used (along with middangeard) for "the (material) world, the abode of man" (as opposed to the heavens or the underworld), from Proto-Germanic *ertho (source also of Old Frisian erthe "earth," Old Saxon ertha, Old Norse jörð,… Nerthus was the Germanic version of Jord. Here we see the Earth Mother, Jord, with the Sky Father, Odin.  Together they are the parents of the thunder god, Thor. Jord Earth Mother and Odin Sky Father original painting, prints, and merch available in shop or through Fine Art America .

 Jowangsin is a Korean Goddess of fire and the hearth.  An offering to Jowangsin in the form of a bowl of fresh water would be placed on an altar above the hearth.  Jowangsin had rules for the kitchen.   Do not curse while in the hearth. Do not sit on the hearth. Do not place your feet on the hearth. Maintain the cleanliness of the kitchen. You may worship other deities in the kitchen. ( source ) Throw your muddy shoes inside or put them on the hearth, and you will experience her vengeance.  She was believed to keep track of household activities and communicate with the heavens. Jowangsin helping with the cooking in a traditional Korean kitchen, circa 1950.  Original painting, prints, and merch available in shop or via Fine Art America  or Saatchi Art . Left: Women in a kitchen in Korea in 1950. Right: An example of a traditional kitchen in hanok (traditional Korean-style homes) during the Joseon Dynasty (1392-1910). [National Archives of Korea, National Folk Museum of Korea] ( source

 Xuannu, also known as Jiutian Xuannu, is a Chinese Goddess of War.  Her name has been translated as Dark Lady, Mysterious Lady, or Dark Lady of the Nine Heavens.   From Wikipedia, "The Yongcheng Jixian Lu (墉城集仙錄[a]), written by the Daoist master Du Guangting (850–933), contains a biographical account of Jiutian Xuannü.  It mentions that Jiutian Xuannü is the teacher of Huangdi.  The work relates a story about the goddess appearing before Huangdi during a time when the latter was in conflict with Chiyou.  Chiyou had caused a great mist, which was so impenetrable that it obscured day and night.  Huangdi would dwell in the mist for several days.  Jiutian Xuannü rode a cinnabar phoenix, holding phosphors and clouds as reins, into the great mist.  She wore variegated kingfisher-feather garments of nine colors.  Huangdi greeted her and received her command.  Jiutian Xuannü said: "I base myself on the teachings of the Grand Supreme.  If you have any doubts, you may question me.&quo

 A bucranium is a bull's head and horns.  Bucrania have been found in shrines at Catalhoyuk, one the oldest cities ever to be excavated.  Dorothy Cameron interpreted the bucrania at Catalhoyuk as a "symbol of life and regeneration--essentially a female symbol, representing the divine power of the female reproductive system." Bucranium = Uterus original painting, prints, and merch available in shop or through RedBubble or  Fine Art America .  Layout of bucrania based on a drawing of a reconstruction of Shrine E VI at the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations in a 2007 article by Joan Relke (below).    Source Marija Gimbutas writes, "the key to understanding Neolithic renditions of the bull's head and horns (bucranium in archaeological literature) comes through their resemblance to the female uterus and fallopian tubes."  Besides the bucrania from Shine E VI, other images at Catalhoyuk show female torsos with bucranium in the position of the uterus and fallopian

 Marija Gimbutas is from the Baltics.  She writes about how her homeland is watched over by the Mates, the Mother Goddesses.  There are over 60 known Mates, for different parts of nature, even after centuries of Christian suppression.  Juras Mate is the Lithuanian Goddess of the Sea.  Mate means mother.    Jurate is her Latvian counterpart, her maiden aspect who falls in love with a fisherman. She brings him to her amber palace beneath the waves, making the thunder god jealous. The thunder god retaliates by destroying her amber palace, killing her love. The amber that continues to wash up on the shores of the Baltic Sea is the detritus of her former castle, and tear shaped droplets are a testament to her broken heart. Juras Mate Consoles Jurate original painting, prints, and merch available in shop or through RedBubble or Fine Art America . Baltic amber washes up on the shore to this day.  ( source )

 "Jingwei bites hold of twigs, determined to fill up the deep-blue sea. Xingtian dances wildly with his spear and shield, his old ambitions still burn fiercely. After blending with things, no anxieties should remain. After metamorphosing, all one's regrets should flee. In vain do they cling to their hearts from the past. How can they, a better day, foresee." --Poet Tao Qian, 365 - 427 CE, writing about Jingwei and Xingtian. Jingwei was a Chinese Goddess who transformed into a bird to save herself from drowning in the sea while playing. She is determined to fill the sea with twigs and pebbles so no one else will meet the same fate. Xingtian was a Chinese God who fought the Supreme Divinity for control, not giving up even after he was decapitated. He continues to fight using his nipples as eyes and his bellybutton as a mouth. He fights with shield in one hand and a battle axe or spear in the other. Both are known for their determination and persistence in impossible tasks.

 Sumerian Great Goddess Inanna had a special lover, the shepherd Dumuzi. Inanna and Dumuzi in the Garden.  Original painting based on a clay plaque from the Erlenmeyer Collection, Isin-Larsa Old Babylonian Period, c. 2000 - 1600 BCE, available through Saatchi Art .  Stickers, prints, and other merch available in shop or through  Fine Art America . Epic events occurred.  Dumuzi ended up having to visit the Underworld annually, thus causing the seasons.  He was known as the Son, and is generally considered to be the archetype on whom Jesus was based.

 Baldur and Nanna, Norse god and goddess, husband and wife.  They lived in the halls of Breidablik, their court of stars in the Milky Way.  This was before Baldur was shot by the fateful arrow, tricked by Loki, murdered.  Before Nanna had to follow him to the Underworld.  Before they rise again at Ragnarok.  Original painting of Baldur and Nanna looking out from the halls of Bredablik, their court of stars in the Milky Way.  Acrylic on recycled cedar shingle. Baldur is known as the shining one. He's basically Viking Jesus.  Their story of visiting the Underworld before rising again at Ragnarok reminds me of Inanna and her mortal lover, both of whom also journey to the Underworld.  In ancient Sumeria, Inanna's homeland, she was sometimes associated with the  Milky Way - Nana's River  (Inanna is sometimes called  Nana ).  Is Nanna related to Inanna?  I've read that Nanna means brave or daring ( source ).   Inanna  was definitely that.  They both journey to the Underworld.

 Hel is the Norse goddess charged with caring for those who die of sickness and old age.  Unlike the modern Satan, ancient gods and goddesses of the underworld were more multifaceted, not necessarily totally evil.  I like to think that Hel makes her halls as pleasant as possible for her wards. Halls of Hel original mixed media collaged painting.  Available via Saatchi Art .  Stickers, prints, and other merch available through RedBubble or Fine Art America .

 I started painting Goddesses in December 2020 as part of a Goddess art challenge, one Goddess per day from a prompt list.  Many were new to me, so I had to research.  Branwen was Goddess #7.  Her story was mostly about her brother, Bran, as was my Branwen painting .  She ended up dead of a broken heart.  Death by patriarchy.  After I had read more feminist angles, I repainted Branwen, and referenced an article by Judith Shaw, reinterpreting her (included in link above).  It was a better interpretation than my first, but, I just read another section of The Living Goddesses by Marija Gimbutas , and I need to reinterpret her again. Branwen with her white raven, in front of Cadair Bronwen.  Original painting, prints, and merch available in shop or through RedBubble or Fine Art America . Branwen is associated with the white raven.  She is a Welsh goddess of sovereignty, and in the landscape she is represented by Cadair Bronwen, a rounded mountain topped with a cairn.  Judith Shaw notes t

 Hebe, Greek Goddess, was an embodiment of eternal youth, the ideal maiden, cupbearer to the gods.  Hebe pours Zeus some elixir of immortality.  Original painting, prints, and merch available in shop or through RedBubble or Fine Art America . When my daughter saw this painting, she said, "It looks like blood."  Yes, yes, it does.  According to Barbara Walker's Women's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets , "The lives of the very gods were dependent on the miraculous power of menstrual blood.  In Greece it was euphemistically called the "supernatural red wine" given to the gods by Hera in her virgin form, as Hebe." This is how they remained immortal.  The fountain of youth, blood of a maiden Goddess. This makes sense, considering the understanding of the functions of menstrual blood at the time.  "Pliny called menstrual blood the 'material substance of generation', capable of forming 'a curd, which afterwards in process of time quicke

 The Jahwist or Yahwist is one of the most widely recognized sources of the Torah, the Jewish Holy Book.  It is so named because of its characteristic use of the word Yahweh.  It dates to around 597-529 BCE.  In the Jahwist 's account of creation, the first man is called Adam because he is taken from the adamah.  What is adamah?  Interesting question...let's digress a bit and come back to it. I recently ordered Barbara Walker's Women's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets , after reading an excerpt online .  From her book, "Indians of South America said all mankind was made of 'moon blood' in the beginning.  The same idea prevailed in ancient Mesopotamia, where the Great Goddess Ninhursag made mankind out of clay and infused with her "blood of life."  Under her alternate name of Mammetun or Aruru the Great, the Potter, she taught women to form clay dolls and smear them with menstrual blood as a conception-charm, a piece of magic that underlay the nam

 Akhenaten, an infamous pharaoh.  He is known for being potentially the first monotheist, attempting to convert ancient Egypt from polytheism to the worship of the Aten alone.  The Aten, also generally known as the "Sun God", the sun disk.  The other day, I saw a Facebook post shared by Kara Cooney - Egyptologist.  An image of a carving from Amarna, the capital city constructed by Akhenaten in honor of his new religion. Hands of the Sun original painting and fine art prints available through Saatchi Art .  Greeting cards, socks, and a wide variety of other merch available through  RedBubble  or Fine Art America . Immediately, I thought, the hands of the Sun are female.  I commented, and Kara Cooney agreed.  She replied to my comment! Shriek!  Kara Cooney talked to me! LOL.  But yes, the hands of the Sun are female. An offering to the rays of the Sun, the Aten, carving from Amarna, currently housed in Berlin. Beyond Kara Cooney's confirmation on Facebook, research  shows t

 I'm reading The Living Goddesses by Marija Gimbutas.  She writes about the abundance of divine feminine figurines found in almost all levels of almost all Neolithic archaeological sites throughout Old Europe.  She discusses how exaggerated body parts on these Neolithic figurines express various manifestations of the divine force.  For example, “The symbolic value of exaggerated buttocks relates to ... double eggs, where the power of the life giving symbol increases by doubling.  Sometimes the artisan molded the buttocks of a figurine on egg-shaped clay cores or pebbles; thus she or he may have felt the interconnectedness of the symbols of buttocks and eggs.”  Creation myths around the world, from prehistory to Big Bang quantum science, involve the cosmic egg .  Perhaps there were two cosmic eggs.  The cosmic Goddess eggs. Cosmic Goddess Eggs original painting and fine art prints available through Saatchi Art .  Prints and other merch also available in shop or through RedBubble o

 Helena Blavatsky was born in what was then Russia in 1831.  She traveled the world, researching ancient religions, searching for ancient wisdom of the great protoreligion.  In 1875, she founded the Theosophical Society.  The motto of the society is "There is no religion higher than truth."  She wrote multiple books and was hugely influential in bringing ideas about eastern religion to the west.  She detested the Catholic missionary system and its attempts to wipe out indigenous religions, and actively worked against it in India and Ceylon.  Both Thomas Edison and Gandhi studied theosophy, along with many other intellectuals of the era. Helena Blavatsky original painting and fine art prints available through Saatchi Art .  Stickers, prints and other merch available in shop or through RedBubble or Fine Art America . In 1888, Blavatsky published the first edition of Secret Doctrine , containing her translation of the Book of Dzyan , an ancient book recounting the origin of the

 Kumari is the living child Goddess of Nepal.  I learned about her today from a BBC video on YouTube, and made a painting based on an image from that video of a seven year old girl sitting in a cage on the street while people ask for blessings, give offerings, and take photographs.  Once a young girl is selected as Goddess - generally before the age of 6 - the youngest was 1.5 years old - she is not allowed to speak to anyone outside of her family, smile, or let her feet touch the ground outside of the temple until she has her first period, rendering her unclean, impure, and mortal again. Kumari, child Goddess of Nepal, original painting, prints, and merch available in shop or through RedBubble or Fine Art America .

 Domnu is a Goddess of southwest England - Cornwall.  Yesterday I heard of her for the first time.  The mother of the Dumnonii, the people who inhabited Cornwall and Devon from at least the Iron Age through the early Saxon period, her name means abyss or deep.  The depictions of her I've found are all modern and interpret this as meaning deep sea.  However, the people of Cornwall were miners.  Hello, Poldark.  Tin is one of key ingredients of bronze, and bronze age tin from Cornwall was traded throughout the ancient world.  Thus, it has recently been suggested that Domnu is not a sea goddess.  Rather, she is the goddess of the mines.  ( source ).   Domnu original painting, prints, and merch available in shop or through RedBubble or Fine Art America . And, apparently, the Goddess of the Mines interpretation has been suggested in the past as well..  I just found a reference to Domnu in a 1922 book,  Ancient Man in Britain , by Donald Alexander Mackenzie. Mackenzie writes, "Gold

 Tawaret is an ancient Egyptian Great Mother Goddess who oversees childbirth.  She has the head of a hippo, tail of a crocodile, limbs of a lioness, and torso of a pregnant woman.  Saturday was International Worker's Day aka Labor Day in much of the world.  Labor Day, Labor Goddess, because being a mom is job and the U.S. needs paid maternity leave like the rest of the developed world.  Also, universal healthcare.  The average price of hospital births in Pennsylvania is $19,764.  That makes Tawaret and I displeased. Tawaret original painting and fine art prints available through Saatchi Art .  Prints and other merch also available in shop or through RedBubble or Fine Art America . The Glencairn Museum writes, "Her very name emphasizes her power.  Taweret (T3-wr.t) means “the great (female) one.”  Greeks rendered her name as Thoeris.  Further emphasizing her protective nature, Taweret usually carries or rests upon the s3 symbol, which reads, “protection.”  In her role as an ap